She never knew him, not really, she just knew he was there. She knew she could hear his voice. She knew he had saved her life, over, and over again. She knew that she needed him. That, she knew. She knew that.

Sitting there in the middle of a dangerous forest, pitch black surroundings spare the few rays of moonlight squeezing through the sparse openings in the intertwining foliage of the trees overhead, she feared nothing. Not with him to protect her. She longed not for water nor food. She worried not for protection. Nothing could touch her without his permission, nothing.

She had taken to calling him patron, or master, sometimes your majesty, whatever felt deferential enough for the moment, whatever felt appropriate, ever so rarely she would whisper “my love” when he was being particularly sweet, when she felt he would allow, a rare occurrence. To her he was the reason for existence, and he was all hers, only hers.

Her name etched across the cover of her magical tome, gifted to her from her patron. The Silent Strength of Sandiirah. A world away from the weak pathetic girl she once was, her patron had granted her the freedom she’d always wished for. Master had asked nothing in return, nothing but gratitude. Something Sandiirah was all too willing to part with. Something that since that day she had reserved exclusively for him, her love.

Sitting there in the darkness, huddled in the roots of a Bragahn tree, she could see everything. Her patron granted her a blessing of shadows long ago. Among the many boons that blessing granted was the ability to see as clearly in the dark as you could midday of Firesmarch. Her toes clenched at the dirt beneath her in anticipation, fingers tightening around the dagger in her left hand while she tucked the tome into her satchel. Sandiirah would hold the book whenever she had the time, but they were getting closer now. She could still feel his embrace as she lay in wait for the traveling merchant and his two measly guards. 

As they drew closer and her intentions focused, something happened. Falling to her knees, blinded by the darkness, suddenly alone, so very alone. His warmth was gone, her blessings were gone. The dagger fell from her grasp as she scrambled in the dirt to pull the tome from her satchel. Crying as she opened the book.

“Master. MASTER WHERE ARE YOU?! PATRON PLEASE!”

The crying intensified as she flipped through the pages. Her cries and screams reached the merchant and his guards as they came along the bend in the road just before the tree.

“DON’T LEAVE ME! NOT YOU! DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME!”

As she screamed and cried flipping through the tome it slipped from her grasp. Sandiirah let loose a wail to wake the dead. Scrambling in the dirt searching for her book she sliced her left calf open against the dagger she’d dropped. The guards hearing the cries ran forward into the edge of the woods looking for the source of the distress. The male guard yelled as he ran through the trees.

“Where are you, we can help you!”

The female guard followed close behind, holding the torch.

“Is she okay!”

They came upon Sandiirah curled into a ball, bloody calfed and sobbing. Confused, they looked around for the source of the distress. The merchant called from the road.

“You two better not die in there, if I don’t make it safely to Meardfeld it’ll be your heads that roll.”

The two guards Braun and Kimmy ignored the man and knelt at the girl's side. Covered head to toe in dirt the barefoot girl was dressed in furs that didn’t cover her enough to be respectable. Braun unhooked his cloaked and draped it over the crying girl.

“Are you hurt? Did someone leave you here?”

Sandiirah didn’t so much as look up, she lay there crying as if she were completely alone. 

“Braun we should get her to the cart, okay? She yelled something about her master leaving her, "I doubt anyone is coming back if they were willing to leave her in this state.”

“We don’t know if she's hurt, if she’s in shock, we need to check her over. Go grab the stitch kit in case she's hurt or has a fever, then we can give her some Ageathan silver to calm her down.”

“That junk is more likely to knock her out than calm her down.”

“Just go to the cart, settle Baylen and grab the stitch kit Kim.”

Kim handed Braun the torch before she ducked beneath some branches, heading back towards Baylen and the cart. Braun started to lift his cloak off Sandiirah.

“I just need to check you over and make sure you aren’t hurt okay?”

No response came and so Braun continued, he pulled the cloak off to the side letting it fall to the dirt. Looking over the girl, no, the woman in front of him, it struck him just how skinny she was, huddled in this crying ball she looked so small, but as he looked her over he saw that she was tall, emaciated, but tall. Her skin was a lighter shade of violet and her hair was the same blue color as the snow in Coldsmarch. A half breed? Braun thought to himself. His eyes searched her over and landed on her calf, a jagged gash ran about half its length. Looking around he saw the jeweled dagger laying a couple feet away glinting in the torchlight. The dagger had a gold hilt with a startling jewel in the pommel, the whole hilt looked to be about 8 inches long. Very long for a dagger Braun thought. The blade itself looked to be six inches long, a deep onyx black color with four edges, all of them serrated and meeting in a point like a very skinny and extremely deadly pyramid. 

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“This is an assassin's dagger, it's designed to be thrusted downward into the side of someone’s neck, a strange thing for a random woman to have with her.”

Kimmy heard Braun mumbling to himself as she came up behind him. Seeing a death dagger in his hand as he knelt over the girl, Kimmy stumbled slightly before pulling her short sword and leveling it at Brauns neck.

“What’re you doin Braun?”

The words came out with an icy steel as Kimmy put herself between him and the girl. Braun put his hands up the dagger loosely held in one while he backed up.

“Wait, look at her calf —”

“Do I look like a fucking idiot to you. We’ve known each other a long time. Long enough that I’ve seen you kill at least a dozen men using the look at the thing behind you line, you’re fast Braun, but I’m faster.”

“Kim for fuck’s sake it’s her dagger, she cut her leg on it, at least I think it’s her dagger. And you have known me for a long time, long enough to know I can’t afford no jeweled assassins tool.”

Braun held out the blade for Kim to take, Kim snatched it with the quickness of a viper and looked it over.

“Well B you’re telling the truth that it’s not your dagger, you definitely couldn’t afford it for one. And for two you’re no Essentialist.”

Kim tossed the dagger back to Braun and put away her sword.

“That jewel isn’t a jewel, it’s a focus. Sorry I pulled my blade on you.”

Braun tossed it back to her.

“You have more places to put that than I do. And I know you Kim, if you really didn’t trust me, you’d have pulled that bow of yours and put an arrow in the back of my head without asking me a damn thing.”

She’d already turned around sliding the dagger into one of the hidden pockets in her coat, and started checking on Sandiirah’s calf, but she gave Braun a subtle nod of acknowledgement.

“So you think she’s a mage?”

“Idk B, but that’s a focus and I’ve only ever seen Essentialists with them, and I’ve never known one to leave their channel behind. Have you?”

“No I guess not. Here.”

Braun handed Kim the Torren root extract and a flask of water, both from the stitch kit Kim had dropped when she pulled her sword. Kim poured water over the wound clearing the dirt and debris from her jagged cut before covering the wound with Torren.

“That’ll harden and pull the wound closed so it can heal. You can give her some of that silver now if you want B. Poor thing’s been whimpering since we came across her.” 

Braun knelt before her, bringing the folded paper closer to her face. Whispering to her comfortingly, Braun pinched some of the silvery powder between two of his fingers and brought it to her nose. He pushed the powder into one of her nostrils leaving silver dust behind on her nose and cheek.

“Not too much you silver head, that shit could kill a saddle lizard.”

“Don’t call me that, Kim.”

He flashed her a look. Was that hurt on his face? Kim wondered. She dropped her head a bit.

“Just be careful okay?”

“She’s fine, she’ll drift off in less than a minute unless she’s a shiner herself.”

Less than 30 seconds later the whimpering had stopped completely and her body fell limp.

“Keep her wrapped in that cloak when you pick her up B, we don’t need Baylen getting any ideas alright?”

“Yeah, I’m on it. Hey look at this, did you notice this before? Was she always holding it?”

Kim looked at the girl bundled up in his arms and saw a small book held firmly to her chest by one of her arms.

“We probably just didn’t notice it cause it’s small. I thought you’d said she’d be out of it, she’s holding onto that thing pretty tight.”

Braun looked down at the fingers clinched firmly to the book.

“She’s out of it, I’ve seen old silver heads completely gone holding onto the last of their silver like it could save the world.”

“So that must mean the book is important to her then?”

“I guess so?”

They made their way back to the cart to find an angry Baylen tapping his foot like an impatient parent.

“What the hell took you two so long, the fuck do I even pay you for. What are you doing? What the hell do you think you’re doing, you’re not putting some dirty brat in my supply cart!”

Braun and Kimmy shot a look Baylen’s way that shut him up, and Braun placed her in the back of the cart. Kim took her cloak off and threw it over her as well, for multiple reasons, it was a cold night, Baylen would want to look at that book, and worse Baylen would want her, once he realized she wasn’t a brat at all. Kim had killed enough overly familiar men to know they were as common as bugs. Sure they didn’t come out when people were around, but leave them alone and suddenly, she shook her head to clear it.

“I’ll cover the rear of the cart B. Baylen go ahead and get the wagon rolling again.”

Braun took the lead, grabbing the torch from the post on the cart. Baylen grumbled to himself as he fumbled in his satchel for the moving stone. Baylen was no Essentialist, but he was a successful trader of minor renown, and among his all too mediocre status he relied on flashy tools to solidify his standing with prospective customers. One of his flashier toys was his self driving cart, it could hold sixty times the weight of a similarly sized cart as well as having its actual cart Essence enchanted to be the size of a small room on the inside. The difference between being Essence enchanted and being a self driving cart was more or less just the innateness of the magic. For the cart to self drive it required a separate source of Essence to draw on, the moving stone, or stones because they do run out after a time. Baylen always had plenty of spares. But an Essence enchantment was permanent more or less, it didn’t need an Essence stone to stay that size, a good thing too because they usually took turns sleeping on the bed in there.

“Well I’m beat, I think I’m gonna call it a night you two. Stay sharp and keep watch, I don’t pay you both for nothing.”

“You’ll call it a good night for a stroll if you want to keep your head attached to the shaft it’s pulling on.”

Baylen hissed furiously in her direction. Pulling a dagger out in a flash, Kim tapped the blade against Baylen’s trousers.

“You know I took you for a sleaze but I didn’t take you for a kid catcher.”

Kim’s words cut through Baylen’s bullshit and stopped him in his tracks.

“I’m no fucking kiddler, I saw her when you put her in the cart, that’s a woman. What do you care anyways, she’s on Brauns fuckin shine right now, she won’t remember a gods damned thing.”

“Easy Kim, it’s alright.”

Kim’s eyes snapped towards Braun, fire burning in them.

“What I meant was you can both head in for a rest and we can rotate, okay Kimmy.”

He only called her Kimmy when he was really trying to calm her down.

“Besides Baylen here didn’t mean it, right Baylen?”

Brauns axe rested itself on the crook of Baylen’s shoulder. Kim’s posture relaxed a bit knowing B had her back on this. Kim had never actually seen Braun do any of the things she so readily accused him of either verbally or just behaviorally, and he always took it in stride, like he understood. Moving Brauns’ axe off his shoulder slowly Baylen looked at Braun and then back towards kim.

“Of course. Of course, I didn’t mean it, Kimmy.”

“Don’t you fucking call me that.”

A sly smirk inched up one side of Baylen’s mouth. Kim considered ending that look forever for a moment, and then another moment. Ultimately they needed this payday. And while Baylen’s social renown was of little note, the traders guild looked after its merchants, especially successful ones that were willing to deal with the less than clean portions of the industry. Even if they didn’t pin Baylen’s death on her and Braun they’d both never get work with the trade guild again. A long sigh later Kim responded to Braun.

“Yeah… yeah B we’ll both turn in, just give a holler if you see trouble, I’m sure I’ll be up.”